My culinary memories of summers at Grand Beach include waiting for the bakery door to open to purchase just-out-of-the-oven cinnamon buns or tasting gravy served on French fries for my very first time, at a bright orange wooden stand called Jo-Anne’s.  Perhaps Lanky’s was the place that you loved or maybe a little place that was fittingly called the Blueberry Patch.  As we vacation in the Grand Beach area every summer and have done so for decades, we have seen many places come and go.  Our favourite in recent years is a place called Ty’s Café at the Sandbar Motor Hotel.  We’ve enjoyed their Friday night Steak Dinner features and their hearty breakfast skillets.  There was a time when they would feature all-you-can-eat pickerel and fries but had to put a kybosh on that when it became enormously popular.  Now the only pickerel appearance is their fish sandwich at lunch time.

We found ourselves seeking out a cool refuge on what turned out to be the hottest day of the summer.  Good thing J2 and I were overheating and hungry too.

She ordered a colossal burger dubbed the Big Kahuna when she spied that it was garnished with grilled pineapple and back bacon.

I lost my head and selected the Meat-Lovers.

What was I thinking? Mine was topped with no less than ham, bacon and sausage!  Needless to say, I could only make my way through a small potion.  These were burgers like you might see on a Food Network show.  You know the kind where the host can hardly fit his mouth around it.  Maybe you thought that burgers this size were an exaggeration.  I am here to say, they are not.  It took an enormous effort to squish mine down to biting size.

Perhaps my appetite for a gigantic burger was negated by the heat and sun. In truth, it was because I had started to nibble on a “few” of the hand-cut shoe string French fries and low and behold, the fries were gone before I even attempted my first bite of burger.

Years from now, when I reminisce about the summer of 2013, I will remember Ty’s two-fisted burgers eaten in that blessed air-conditioned café.

Kath’s quote: “I am not a glutton — I am an explorer of food.”-Erma Bombeck

Love-that is all.

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